Crude oil
Above normalWTI crude oil price
$86.48/bbl on Aug 18, 2026. Daily spot price, at Cushing, Oklahoma, the delivery point for the main US crude oil futures contract.
Data through Aug 18, 2026 · source last checked Aug 25, 2026 · page revised Aug 25, 2026
Cite
- WTI spot
About this data
- Source
- EIA daily spot price
- Series
- WTI crude oil spot
- Basis
- FOB, wholesale, untaxed; a crude oil benchmark, not a diesel price
- Geography
- Cushing, Oklahoma
- Unit
- $/bbl
- Calculation
- Daily (business days)
- Last observation
- Aug 18, 2026
- Update frequency
- Daily
Now $86.48/bbl, 14% above the 5-yr median.
WTI crude is at $86.48/bbl, up 2.0% on the week and 14% above the five-year median. Year over year, crude has climbed 34.1%.
| Period | Current | Prior | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Week over week | $86.48/bbl | $84.77/bbl | +2.0% |
| vs 4 weeks ago | $86.48/bbl | $84.38/bbl | +2.5% |
| Year over year | $86.48/bbl | $64.51/bbl | +34.1% |
| vs 5-yr median | $86.48/bbl | $75.82/bbl | +14.1% |
Previous weeks
An earlier week
WTI crude oil rose $7.44 a barrel on the week to close at $84.77/bbl as of Aug 11, a 9.6% move. Year over year the price is up $19.74, or 30.4%. Crude sits 4% above the 5-year median.
An earlier week
WTI crude fell 2.7% on the week to $81.96/bbl. The price is up 17.5% from four weeks ago and sits 9% above the 5-year median.
About WTI crude oil price
WTI, short for West Texas Intermediate, is the benchmark price for crude oil delivered at Cushing, Oklahoma, the delivery point for the main US crude oil futures contract. It is not a diesel price. Refiners buy crude like this, run it through a refining process that yields diesel alongside gasoline, jet fuel and other products, and sell the diesel into the wholesale and retail market the rest of this site tracks.
Crude accounts for roughly half the cost of a gallon of diesel at the pump, with refining, distribution, taxes and station margin making up the rest. The pump price vs crude oil page tracks that split live.
A crude move does not show up at the pump the same day. It has to work through refining schedules, pipeline and terminal logistics and wholesale contracts first, so retail diesel typically follows a crude move with a lag of days to weeks, not hours.